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How to Cleanup Computer

Clean Up Your PC to Improve
Performance

One of the first things you should do when you start optimizing your
PC is clean up all the junk that has accumulated over time. Get rid of the junk
and you will definitely notice a significant increase in performance. Let me
explain why.

In a way, computer junk is very similar to real-life junk and
clutter. Optimizing PCs is a bit like making your home comfortable and your
kitchen practical. Imagine that your house is full of junk (mine is sometimes,
so not too hard to imagine). Imagine clothes and odd shoes lying around, books
and DVDs scattered all over the place, USB cords and other cables poking out of
drawers… Well, you get the idea. Some people’s houses are actually even worse
than that and have things like spare car parts lying around. And some people
simply never through anything away. So their houses are packed with old
furniture and other stuff that should really be either given to a charity shop
or thrown away.

Now answer this simple question – would you be comfortable living in
a cluttered home? For me, the answer is “No”. When your home is full of junk,
finding the things you need is really hard and everything starts taking longer
than it should.

Same with computers – the more junk you have, the more time Windows
needs to process everything. That’s why it’s important to remove all the junk
you can find and get your PC more organized. Let’s get started!

Clean your desktop

Quoting Fräulein Maria from “The Sound of Music”, let’s start
at the very beginning. In case with computers, it’s your desktop. Does yours
look like this?

Hopefully not, but it’s still good to clean it up.

The first thing you should do is move all files from your desktop. By
the way, I’m not talking about program launch icons – we’ll discuss organizing
them later on.

Windows keeps your desktop in the RAM and the more stuff there is,
the less RAM you have for other things. So, if you have tons of large video
files plastered on your desktop, your computer will take longer to start up.
And if you are generally low on RAM, a cluttered desktop may decrease overall
computer performance. That’s why you should move all files to ordinary folders.

Now that you’ve moved all files from the desktop, it’s time to
organize your icons. First let’s get rid of the icons you don’t use. Windows
has a tool that will help you do it. Here is how to use it:

Windows XP:

1.
Right-click on an empty space on your desktop
and click Arrange Icons By

2.
Click on Run Desktop Cleanup Wizard

3.
Click Next

4.
Uncheck the boxes for the icons you wish to
remove and click Next

5.
Click Finish to confirm.

Windows
will create an Unused Desktop Icons folder where it will store the
unused icons. You will then be able to either add more icons to the folder or
restore the ones you need.

Windows 7:

1.
Right-click on an empty space on your desktop
and click View, then click Show desktop icons

2.
This will uncheck the option and make your icons
disappear. You can get them back whenever you need them by re-enabling the Show
desktop icons option.

Now that you’ve gotten rid of the icons you never use, you can
automatically arrange the remaining icons. Here is how:

Windows XP:

1.
Right-click on an empty space on your desktop,
click Arrange Icons By and then click Auto Arrange. Windows will
place your icons in rows.

2.
You can then click on Type and customize
how Windows arranges your icons.

Run disk cleanup

Disk cleanup is one of the most important parts of computer
maintenance. Remember that the more free space there is, the faster your
computer will run. Performing disk cleanup is essential because Windows
accumulates unnecessary junk files that massively reduce computer performance.
These files are just like the junk hidden deep in your wardrobe – you can’t see
it, but it’s still there and it’s wasting space. So how do they get created in
the first place?

Most Windows programs create temporary files for a number of
purposes, but mostly when a program needs more memory for its tasks or when a
program is working with large chunks of data. Programs like Microsoft Office
also create temporary files and use them for keeping a copy of your data in
case the program crashes.

In the perfect world, temporary files would be deleted automatically
when the programs close. Unfortunately, sometimes things go wrong. Poorly written
applications, improper shutdowns, and freeze-ups often leave temp files behind.
That’s how gigabytes of clutter are created. Another type of temporary files
is Temporary Internet Files. These files are created by the browser and are
often kept for a lot longer than necessary.

Deleting junk files is easy enough – all you need to do is run the
built-in Disk Cleanup tool.

Windows XP:

1.
Click on Start and go to Programs
– Accessories – System Tools

2.
Launch the Disk Cleanup tool

3.
Select the drive you want to cleanup and let the
program analyze it

4.
Review the results and click OK to clean
up junk files

This should free up a considerable amount of disk space. If you want
to free up even more space, delete all except the most recent System Restore
Points. To do that, just click on the More Options tab and click on Clean
up under System Restore

Windows 7:

1.
Click on Start, type Disk Cleanup
into the search box

2.
Launch the Disk Cleanup tool. It will
offer you to choose the drive you wish to clean up

3.
Click OK and let the tool analyze your
drive

4.
Now review the list of files to be deleted and
click OK

Just like XP, Windows 7 allows you to delete old System Restore
Points and shadow copies. To do that, simply click on Clean up system files
and then click on Clean up under System Restore and Shadow Copies.
Make sure you are running the tool as administrator – otherwise you won’t get
the option to delete System Restore Points

Instructions how you can schedule disk cleanup and more tips in our
ebook “Turbo Windows – the Ultimate PC Speed Up Guide”. Download it for FREE now!

Clicking this button will download the Turbo Windows e-book and a free version of Auslogics BoostSpeed 6, which will detect speed issues, clean out junk files and let you use several optimization tools. To install BoostSpeed, you need to launch the boost-speed-setup.exe file included in the archive with the e-book.

Your e-book is downloading!

To celebrate the release of the brand-new version of our flagship PC optimizer, we have included a free version of BoostSpeed 6 with your download.

To install it, just launch the boost-speed-setup.exe file included in the archive with the e-book. The free BoostSpeed version will run a comprehensive checkup of your PC, let you eliminate junk files, optimize your memory and CPU consumption in real time and provide 3 powerful performance tools.